


Fallacies in Pigment

by Siver



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Ch.9, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-10 15:04:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20529998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siver/pseuds/Siver
Summary: His was one face he struggled to paint over the years. Now he knows why





	Fallacies in Pigment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughingpineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/gifts).

There was nothing much to do but walk. That much hadn’t changed on this strangest of nights. He walked to the chair and now he walked to… well that was a big unknown. The Minister’s Office was the simple answer. The more complicated answer lay shrouded in the white coat that had slipped a step ahead of him. There was something deeper here and try as Jowd did to ignore it, old instincts jabbed at him as surely as a rusty nail. About as pleasant too.

So, Jowd took the only other option available to him now. He studied and as the most interesting target in these dull streets—certainly the most eye-catching in gleaming white with a step that had lost none of its sparkling dance at any rate—Cabanela earned his stare.

Over the long years Jowd had painted. He painted those faces he didn’t want to forget. He could try to say some were more difficult than others. Truth was they were all hard in their own unique ways and he relished it.

As he’d painted one particular portrait he’d found it starting to grow easier, at first, to lose Cabanela to each brush stroke. He’d put this one off for a while, but now the time was right. Cabanela was the Inspector of Special Investigations now if the prison gossip could be believed. Distant, aloof, following the path of the white coat with a spotless record—not quite spotless though, eh old friend? There was one spot buried now in dark with him. It would disappear for good in time.

His brush hesitated. This Cabanela was only pigment on canvas and growing more difficult to place as the details grew. Typical, the man was impossible to pin down after all. He did his best but only found more he couldn’t quite capture and that too was fitting. Neither were what they had once been after all. What was left for him to capture anymore?

_An arm slung around his shoulder while his other hand accompanied his words, expounding on anything and everything from the best coffee, to a case, to some odd little shop he discovered tucked away in a back street and everything in between._

An arm cast out and the glint of moonlight on a pocket watch. Why?

_A hand in his guiding him across the dance floor making it far easier than it had any right to be. Skill in spades, but generous with it._

He wondered if the Inspector still was.

_A head in his lap and long legs draped over the remainder of the sofa. Jowd’s hand running through his hair, careful not to disrupt his styling too much. Cabanela’s hand catching Alma’s as she passed to go check on Kamila._

He looked much the same now, but there were no hands to catch anymore.

_Feet tapping against the stairs as Cabanela danced into the station, far too shiny and eager for the early hour gloom, yet Jowd privately thought the whole place seemed to brighten._

He was still too bright, glaringly so in this darkness.

There was one detail he forgot in that cell and overlooked this night: Cabanela always had a way of knowing when he was being watched. Jowd figured he’d always enjoyed it, but that extra sense wasn’t welcome at the moment.

Cabanela slowed enough for Jowd to cover the step between them and looked at him, eyebrow cocked in question and a curve to his smile telling Jowd that yes, Cabanela was well aware of the stare. It was Cabanela’s stare Jowd felt pinned under now.

His brush had lingered around the eyes, caught between gleaming warmth and cold accusation. It was an easy decision if only his traitorous hand would listen. So he painted eyes he couldn’t read. Black paint brought its own sharp comforts.

There was no paint to cover this set of eyes.

“Is there somethin’ I can dooo for you, baby?”

“Have you got a chair for me?”

“Can’t saaay I’ve got what you’re lookin’ for, old friend.”

“Unfortunate.”

It had to be the street light. His hands had tried for warmth and found it lacking. He had tried for the chill and couldn’t face it, coward that he was. Now, a tightening of the mouth and in his eyes was a new look, a look only noticeable for not fitting there. He couldn’t put words to it because those words were impossible on him.

He’d like to think he imagined it as fleeting as it was, but it remained encased in his memory as any other. He was surely wrong. There was no reason for this man to hold pain and even less reason for what he didn’t dare, but could only call longing. He betrayed Cabanela in every possible way. A clean end was the best they could and should hope for.

There were more ways than chairs. Jowd idly wondered what would happen if he tried to run. One man ran with a gun and had a gun pointed at him. Kill a man and be killed in turn—there was an appeal to it. The picture wouldn’t be quite the same, but could history repeat itself? Paint a more appropriate stain on this smock. If anyone had the right to wield that brush it was him.

Prod. Test. He jerked his head toward where he knew Cabanela’s gun was holstered. “It doesn’t have to be a chair.”

Cabanela only flipped a hand, well away from his gun. Pity. “I’m no executioner.”

Well, he was already late as was, if not late enough. Might as well see where this night would go and he fell in step with him.

More streets, unfamiliar to eyes used to the stone walls of prison yet all too familiar. So much for trashing those memories. How many times had they walked these streets? Too many. This wasn’t the last walk he expected, but there was a kindness in finality.

They stopped just outside the Justice Minister’s office building.

“Well, baby? Ready to pay the minister a liiittle visit?”

Cabanela’s hand brushed against his, his fingers warm and lingering. A different sort of shock coursed through Jowd. _Fingers running over his beard. A hand on his cheek._ As Jowd stared, words suddenly gone as the old memory swept over him, he caught sight of another version of those eyes he knew he’d never be able to paint had he the time, not because the look was new, but because it was far too painfully familiar in a way he counted on never seeing again. Fierce determination, the fiercest, a promise that he had everything under control, and maybe just a hint of triumph.

Now he knew why he hadn’t been able to paint him. He hadn’t been painting _Cabanela _as he was, as he is. A pocket watch hiding its own secrets, a look and a touch: he’d had him wrong from day one.

He suddenly chuckled. To think they'd rival each other in misjudgment once more as well. Try as he might to look away from Cabanela's being here, this little stroll and the 'watch' in his pocket created an outline. Cabanela had something and that 'something' spelled nothing good for Jowd's plans. But Cabanela had it wrong. He was only wasting time on a murderer. 

"Care to shaaare the joke, my friend?"

"I was just thinking of what a sorry lot the Minister is about to have on his hands. I'm ready."

Cabanela whirled and flung open the doors. "You just follow my lead, baby."

Jowd shrugged. There was nothing better to do now and if there was one thing Cabanela could be relied upon it was to be interesting. So Jowd followed on through the night. 

And in the room Jowd and Alma converted to a small studio Jowd painted a set of dark eyes, determined, fierce and triumphant. 


End file.
